Behindlings

by Nicola Barker

Ted knew for a fact that the library didn’t open for a further two hours. But she looked exhausted –

  Hollow

  His heart went out to her.

  He noticed the scratch on her cheek. Just one scratch. Yet deep. It trickled down stickily onto her neck, like the viscid tail of a sweet, raspberry jam pip. Her nails were clean, though, and neat and newly painted. She was holding a yellow mesh shopping bag dotted with perky plastic daisies.

  ‘I have a message from Wesley,’ Ted murmured, almost swallowing the name whole he was so anxious about offending her with it.

  Eileen glanced sharply into the back of his car (perhaps Wesley might be hiding there, ready to spring out at her, unprovoked?) and saw the rope, coiled up, like a boa constrictor. She put her hand to her throat, automatically. ‘Why?’ she asked distrustfully, ‘what does he want with me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve arranged to meet him just out of town. He asked me to bring you along. And some rope. And some eggs.’

  Her eyes immediately filled with tears. ‘Does he plan to humiliate me again?’ she asked tremulously (as if humiliation was all she deserved, all she could ever really hope for).

  It suddenly dawned on Ted what kind of a picture his shopping list had painted for her. He winced. And yet…

  ‘Did he humiliate you before?’ he asked, battling to evict the image of Eileen in awful bondage, her yellow cashmere sweater dress irrevocably yanked asunder…

  The gradual drip of the yolk down the front of her cleavage

  The slither of the albumen down her pale, porcelain shoulder

  She nodded. Sniffed. Lifted her glasses. Patted at her eyes with the knuckle of her index finger.

  ‘Did he hurt you?’

  Ted’s hand clenched his leg. He wasn’t sure why, exactly. But he enjoyed the tantalising pinch of his thumb and his index finger.

  She nodded again, lifted her bag, looked inside it for a tissue to try and salvage her mascara.

  ‘Did he…’ Ted indicated towards her cheek.

  She glanced up and shook her head.

  ‘No. A beak,’ she muttered.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘He hurt my pride,’ she said, then shrugged, modestly, ‘that’s all. And I probably deserved it. I’ve let things… I’ve let things slide…’

  Ted couldn’t work out whether her modest shrug made things better or worse. He did note however, a corresponding – an unexpected twitch in his genitalia.

  Eileen removed her purse from her handbag along with a powder compact, a bone-handled hunting knife, some throat pastilles and a heron’s head preserved for posterity inside a transparent plastic bag.

  Ted’s gentle erection immediately subsided.

  She finally located her tissues, took one out of the packet, and dabbed softly at her injured cheek with it.

  ‘Isn’t that Wesley’s knife?’ Ted asked, eyeing the decapitated bird’s head, worriedly.

  She looked down, almost aghast, automatically opened her hand and dropped it.

  ‘I don’t know why I took it,’ she said, panicked (as if she’d only just that second committed the theft – had been caught red-handed), ‘I just wanted to stop him from… from hurting…’

  Ted climbed out of his car and retrieved the knife for her. He handed it back, blunt-end first. She thanked him and thrust it into her bag.

  ‘Leo said he’d called the police,’ Ted said, glancing over his shoulder.

  Her eyes widened behind her glasses.

  ‘I don’t think you’d want them to find you with that…’ he indicated towards the bird, ‘I believe they’re protected. Wesley was very…’

  She looked down, shaking a little.

  ‘He was very specific on that point,’ Ted concluded.

  ‘I was intending to bury it somewhere,’ she explained.

  ‘We could do it together,’ Ted heard himself saying gently, ‘I could drive you to the beach or to… to the flyover, underneath it, where the soil is soft. We could bury it there.’

  ‘Are you laughing at me Ted,’ she suddenly asked, ‘just like he did? And just like the Turpin girl did? Is there something… something funny about me? Am I very silly?’

  Ted’s gut told him to put out his hand and touch her hair. He put out his hand. He touched her hair.

  It was unbelievably stiff.

  ‘I think you’re magnificent,’ he said, leaning forward, as if to sniff where he’d touched (what was the logic in that?) but he kissed her, instead. On the ear. This wasn’t exactly the place he’d been gunning for. But it was a start –

  Wasn’t it?

  Eileen hiccuped – quite unromantically – turned her nose sharply into his cheek and then dropped her bag, heavily, onto his feet.

  Forty-four

  Beyond the quick and the dead

  Lies Sirius, First God of Dogs,

  Who stood up

  51 times

  Who fell

  Only 8,

  But who spawned

  Sweet Beauty and his Angel

  So the gone might gander

  She scampered past the Wimpy (head down, hood up) but she was a fool – she told herself –

  A fool

  – if she honestly believed she was going to get away with it. To pursue was his life-blood; the hunting, the hounding, the heeling, the trailing…

  She suddenly didn’t

  – I don’t

  – she suddenly didn’t –

  I don’t…

  I don’t…

  – she suddenly didn’t like it –

  This feeling

  – she suddenly began to appreciate…

  Damn

  He was out of there like a shot – she heard the door slamming, a muffled curse, his oilskin flapping like an ill-adjusted mainsail as he jogged heavily – unevenly –

  Was that a limp?

  – behind her.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ he finally gasped, placing his hand onto her shoulder, exerting a certain amount of pressure. He was limping. Just slightly. And the ground was slippy. The snow was still coming down in unpredictable flurries. It was fiercely cold.

  ‘I got distracted,’ she said flatly and struggled to keep on walking (like a girl who’d stormed out on her faithless lover – a girl who wanted to stop but whose pride wouldn’t let her).

  ‘Distracted by what?’

  He struggled to keep up.

  ‘By the past.’

  He didn’t seem to want to register this answer. It was too bald. Too pretentious.

  ‘What did the guide want? Did he give anything away? Is he working with the fraud squad? Did he say?’

  She shook her head. Her eyes were burning –

  Strained

  – by all that persistent gazing; that staring outward, that squinting forward. They were approaching the intersection opposite the Bingo hall, alongside the pub. It was relatively busy for the time of day it was. She picked up her pace.

  Doc – and quite unexpectedly – did the complete opposite. He stalled. He stopped in his tracks. Jo tried to walk on – almost oblivious – tried to cross, but the lights changed and she was obliged to turn back again. She puffed out her cheeks, frustratedly.

  ‘They got to you,’ he said. His voice sounded the same. His facial expression did not alter. But there was a palpable difference in him – a transformation. She glanced over, slightly alarmed, unsure what her own face was doing –

  Can’t trust it

  – only wanting not to engage him or to encourage him, or to offend.

  ‘Nobody got to me,’ she retorted blankly.

  ‘I can tell they did,’ he answered, staring at her intently, ‘I can see.’

  She shrugged. She felt like a heel. But she was out of her depth here. Hooch’d been right –

  The miserable little shit

  ‘Well that’s… that’s just too bad,’ he murmured, gently shaking his head. His voice was soft now. He seemed – she frowned – almost disappointed. No –
<
br />   No…

  – Fascinated?

  No…

  – Fearful?

  Yes

  She suddenly remembered how Shoes had looked, the previous day, after their stint in the library. That same look of… that same…

  Loss?

  And she felt it too. She was feeling –

  An absence?

  A short-fall?

  A deficiency?

  ‘Please don’t be…’ she grappled for the appropriate adjective, brushing some snow from her eyelid.

  He began to back off, very slowly, as if he’d inadvertently kicked a dozing cobra. She felt alarm, as though – by some miraculous process – the real Josephine Bean was suddenly standing behind her, perhaps laughing maniacally, brandishing a firearm, resting it insolently across her shoulder.

  ‘Something bad’s happening here,’ Doc said ominously, his shoulders hunching up, glancing around him. ‘He keeps walking the island, and walking, and walking… like he’s… like he’s locked. Like he’s stuck. I’ve never seen it before. Never. Something’s missing. Something’s gone wrong,’ he gazed straight at her, ‘and now you’ve become party to it…’

  ‘No,’ Jo shook her head, ‘I just got… I’m just… . caught up… I’m not… not…’

  Involved

  The light had changed. The traffic was now stationary.

  ‘He doesn’t…’ Doc said, then stopped abruptly, looking around him, patting at his pockets as if he’d momentarily forgotten something.

  ‘Are you alright, Doc?’

  She was worried for him.

  ‘He doesn’t talk…’ he started up again, then he stopped, like an old-fashioned record player with a faulty wind-up-mechanism.

  ‘Doc?’

  She took a step closer. She held out her hand.

  ‘He doesn’t…’ he was briefly re-energised, ‘Wesley doesn’t talk to the people Following… that’s the whole… the whole point.’

  He concluded his mantra, then gazed at her, balefully, as if she’d contravened something inviolable.

  ‘He thinks I’m…’ Jo pushed back her hood, as though this small gesture might underline her irreproachability, ‘he thinks I’m a fraud,’ she said, ‘but I’m…’

  Aren’t I?

  ‘Hooch warned me about you,’ Doc said, ‘but I didn’t…’ he shook his head, confusedly. A woman walked past them with a tartan shopping cart; one of the wheels was squeaking fiercely. He grimaced, ‘Because they’ve been keeping stuff back…’ he continued, doggedly, ‘and it’s not just the…’

  His eyes were moving, from place to place, unfocussed, ‘It’s not just the confectionery thing. It’s bigger. And they won’t… it’s like they’re devouring him. Like the whole of the Following is gradually…’

  Doc was visibly unravelling. Like an old reel of cotton. There. On the street. Right in front of her.

  ‘Oh God knows I was a bad father,’ he suddenly whimpered, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm, ‘never had time for my boy. First it was the model replicas – the traction engines – but he was never remotely mechanical. Never. And then after Hilly passed…’ He was smiling, hopelessly. ‘The Following just… it just…’

  He made a mushroom-cloud gesture with his hands, gazed at her imploringly.

  ‘Ballooned,’ Jo struggled to fill in.

  ‘No,’ he was definite.

  ‘Exploded?’ Jo tried again.

  He shrugged. He let her have it. He moved on.

  ‘Wes was working with the crop circle people. Then it broadened out into that whole anti-pesticide thing.’ He turned – for no apparent reason – and began directing his words towards the pub noticeboard, which was hung on the wall directly to the right of him. ‘He wrote THIS IS POISON in the barley close to where I was living – a place called Bletchley – in huge lettering. And it was…’ he chuckled, ‘it was glorious. I went along to see it, just to take a quick… and that was the start. I was…’

  He was quiet for a while, still gazing dreamily at Sky TV – Snooker – Home-Cooked Pub Grub Served Daily in chalk-effect paint.

  ‘It’s no coincidence,’ he murmured, ‘that the website’s gone down. They’re isolating him. They’re planning something.’

  ‘Who?’ Jo asked. She couldn’t help herself.

  Doc didn’t appear to have heard her.

  ‘Doc?’ she said, gently.

  His looked over, almost shocked by her being there, his eyes focussing in on the lapels of her coat. ‘I never had time for Colin…’ he mumbled, ‘Colin just wanted to join in. I should’ve made time for him, away from all of this… this…’ his eyes moved idly over her shoulder, then widened.

  ‘They’ve got my dog,’ he gurgled. Josephine gazed at him, stolidly.

  ‘They’ve got my dog,’ he repeated, with rather more urgency. Jo turned around, slowly. A silver car was pulling across the lights, turning a lazy left. Inside it the guide – the young guide – on the passenger side, and another man – older – driving. On the young man’s lap sat the dog. He seemed perfectly at his ease there.

  ‘Dennis!’ Doc yelled, grabbing Jo’s coffee cup and throwing it at the car as it glided magisterially past them. Both men were smiling. The man driving lifted his hand off the steering wheel and waved as the coffee carton connected. The lid bounced off but there was precious little liquid left inside of it.

  Doc tried to hurl himself at them, but he was blocked by railings, so he charged a sharp right, onto the crossing. The traffic was still moving. One car honked its horn. Another – a white car – braked sharply and veered into the neighbouring lane. A bike swerved, the rider struggling to stay upright by running his trainered shoe at high speed along the tarmac.

  ‘Doc!’

  Jo sprinted out after him.

  She could smell mbber, burning.

  A second car sounded its horn. She grabbed his arm but he resisted. He was much stronger than she might’ve anticipated. He broke free and just ran –

  He ran

  – straight into the path of an oncoming mail van.

  Two-three-five seconds later and –

  Is this my fault?

  Did I…?

  Fuck

  – everything had just… just…

  Stopped

  – and the grey stuff – the… the…

  Tarmac

  Its… Its… Its…

  Hardness

  The way he… he…

  Jolted

  The way it – the way…

  The bounce

  All his clothes… the way they’d… the way –

  Shuddered

  And it was only –

  What was it?

  Bumper –

  Light –

  Bonnet –

  ‘I am a…’ she gasped, ‘I am a qualified medical…’

  A nurse

  They all drew around him, like petals around a flower. She glanced up –

  Where did they…?

  – then she looked down again and loosened his collar.

  They all drew back slightly.

  A murmur

  Blood

  Corner of his lip

  The pulse of it

  The un-ex-purgated tick-tick-tick…

  ‘He’s bitten his tongue,’ she murmured.

  Doc was still conscious, but not…

  ‘Take…’ he said, his eyes bulging wider. He put his hand to his pocket but everything inside it had flown out in the collision –

  On impact…

  Saliva…

  A small pool of it on the…

  Darkening

  Someone had gathered all the discarded things together.

  How long had it been already?

  No time?

  Forever?

  A shoe –

  Hat –

  Dog leash –

  Bus pass –

  Wallet –

  Pager –

  Some

  One

  Goo
d

  Person

  Had

  Kindly

  Done

  That

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said, ‘it was just a… it doesn’t look…’

  He was staring past her, trying to shake his head.

  There was a tiny –

  A tiny…

  – a tiny little nick on his ear.

  The guide was suddenly there – ‘Oh shit. Oh my God…’ – bending over and gasping, ‘We only just found the dog, wandering around in the Charfleets. We were bringing it straight…’

  ‘Will everybody just move back…’ she shouted.

  She could see –

  Just keep on breathing

  She could see the beginnings of a cataract on his left eye. She was mesmerised by it as she squeezed his hand.

  The dog arrived, pulling along the driver of the silver car who’d tied his belt around his neck in an attempt to secure him and was holding his trousers up – comically –

  Funny

  This isn’t funny

  – with his other hand.

  ‘Dennis is back,’ she said, ‘Doc?’

  ‘Doc?’

  The dog shunted its way forward and licked the Old Man’s neck.

  The Old Man had closed his eyes.

  She looked up. She saw the tennis player, holding a handkerchief over his face, staring down, amazed. He was talking to the man who ran the Bingo hall. He had his notebook out. Pen. Didn’t have enough hands.

  The boy…

  Patty…

  Mugging dumbly in confusion, hugging himself with anxiety…

  I am alone

  ‘Where’s Wesley?’ Doc had opened his eyes. He was panting.

  ‘It’s alright,’ Jo whispered.

  ‘No…’ Doc tried to turn his head, ‘you don’t… he needs…’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. She could hear sirens. ‘I’ll take care of him. Trust me.’

  The traffic was still flowing past them –

  Slowly

  Quietly

  With the minimum of disruption

  – as she gently made her pledge to annihilate everything.

  Forty-five

  Quiescence

  The only real option available to them.

  He’d thought his way around it –

  Solidly

  – and even thinking about doing anything –

  Even thinking it